With her country’s future and her own life at stake, an orphaned duchess must journey into a world of myth and there discover a power that may be her salvation--or her demise--in this enchanting historical fantasy from the Anne of Brittany was a child when her realm was invaded, her home besieged, and her royal father driven to his death. Now;her;treasury is empty,;her;land occupied by her enemies, and she is ordered, under threat of renewed war, to become queen of her conquerors and marry the King of France. This marriage means her country’s annexation.;But Anne;promised her father that Brittany would never be conquered. Defiantly, she betroths herself in secret to France’s greatest enemy. But in a world where courts may spy on each other by magic, there is only one way to solemnize this illicit union. Anne takes her court deep into a legendary forest, where the court diviners’ skill cannot reach. The world thinks they are only a hunting party, coursing after unicorns. But that is a lie, a trick, a feint. No one in living memory has seen a unicorn. All Anne wants is this secret wedding, which is her only hope of salvation. But when against all hope a unicorn appears and a stranger out of legend stumbles from the trees and falls at her feet, Anne is plunged into a world of enchantment where a doomed sovereign might find the power to change her own and her country’s destiny--or be lost in the shadows forever.

Autorentext

Katherine Arden is the New York Times bestselling author of The Warm Hands of Ghosts, the Winternight trilogy, and the Small Spaces Quartet. In addition to writing, she enjoys aimless travel, growing flowers, and running wild through the woods with her dog, Moose. She lives in Vermont.

Klappentext

In a desperate gamble to save her throne, a young monarch conceals a secret marriage in the shadows of an enchanted forest—and unknowingly alters the fate of her world—in this dazzling novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Bear and the Nightingale.

“I loved every moment I spent in this magical, dangerous, and haunted realm in the company of its clever and captivating duchess.”—Naomi Novik, author of A Deadly Education

Anne of Brittany was a child when France invaded and drove her royal father to his death. Now she is a young woman, sovereign duchess of an occupied realm, and France means to crown their conquest by marrying her to their king. Such an alliance would put her title, her lands, and her body forever in the hands of her enemies.

But Anne refuses to be the last duchess of Brittany.

Her only hope of resisting conquest is another alliance sealed with marriage, so Anne arranges a daring last gambit: a secret betrothal to Charles of France’s greatest rival. But secrets are hard to keep in a world where rival courts spy on each other with diviners.

The forest of Brocéliande was once the haunt of Merlin the Enchanter and the long-lost faerie queen. But magic is long gone from Broceliande, except for the occasional sight of a unicorn and one critical quirk: This ancient forest is completely hostile to divination.

While pretending compliance with France, Anne plans a unicorn hunt in Brocéliande. A bit of pointless pageantry. A diversion so she can wed in secret.

Or so she thinks.

In this rich and epic novel, the author of the acclaimed Winternight trilogy turns the real history of a remarkable woman into an unforgettable tale of mystery, enchantment, and the price of power.

Leseprobe
Chapter 1

The French envoy came to Nantes on the last Sunday of Eastertide, when all the Breton court were still at church, when the hiss of rain and the pealing of bells swallowed the hoofbeats and shouts of his company. The court heard Mass unaware of his coming; they schemed and gossiped and took communion just as always, and no one from the pot-boy to the duchess knew that from that year, Christendom would never be the same.

Rain does not fall in Brittany so much as hover, filling the air with vapor, so that the courtiers emerged from the cathedral and were instantly wrapped in cloud. The bells overhead rang loud enough to shake the raindrops crooked. Arrayed in their Easter best, the court glowed in the gray light, though there were fewer of them than there should have been. Many had died in the war with France, many more were still far away awaiting ransom, like ambulatory notes payable in their conquerors’ châteaux.

At the heart of the crowd walked a girl with merry eyes, a floating violet in a sea of cut-velvet and silk hose, cloth-of-silver and the smell of myrrh, concentrating as she held her skirt clear of puddles. This was Anne, duchess regnant of Brittany, her hair caught back in a diadem and a pearl-studded crespine, though she wore no other jewels. They had all been sold to pay her garrisons.

She did not know that a French envoy had come to the castle. Indeed, she was expecting a messenger from quite another direction, and that expectation lit an already animated face. She and her maids-of-honor were playing a game of riddles as they walked.

“I am in all things and through all things,” declaimed the prosiest among them. “I am in candles and lamps and water and dice. I am the word of God; I am the blessing of mankind. I am—”

“Divination,” answered four brisk voices. All of Anne’s maids-of-honor were clever.

Another of them began a different riddle: “Three pears hang, three monks pass, each takes one, yet two remain, how—”

Jean de Rieux had been named Anne’s guardian by her father while the latter lay breathing blood on his deathbed, and now he watched the riddle-game with an indulgent, anxious face. He was of far too sober a mind to make up riddles. He said, low, “Highness, have you seen the diviner this day? What news?”

“Of my messenger? None yet,” murmured Anne, leaning on his arm to dodge another puddle. Rain filled the air; she breathed it in. “I shall ask when I have dry feet. But knowing where he is will not bring him here the faster.”

De Rieux shook his head. “I have warned you against overconfidence, my daughter. This—your—arrangement—” He stumbled on the right word, so great was the secrecy, though the clamor of bells overhead muffled their voices. “It is a notable victory, but you must not sell the bear’s skin before it has been killed.”

“Or in this case married. Let us all pity the bear,” said Anne, and smiled impishly up at him. Ducal dignity could not quite hide her pleased excitement, and she was not yet twenty. “I have not been hasty.”

Before De Rieux could answer, Anne’s sister Isabeau darted up to them, dragging her soaking hem straight through the puddles. She was ten years old, restless as a baby duck; her dark hair had already begun the inevitable process of slithering loose of its careful plaits. She skidded across the stones, De Rieux caught her, and Anne said, “Isabeau, unless you intend to man the battlements yourself, I beg you will not bankrupt me keeping you in shoes. We must pay our soldiers.”

“Give me a spear and I will guard the wall,” retorted Isabeau, swinging an imaginary weapon. She hardly came to De Rieux’s shoulder, barely shorter than Anne, though Isabeau gave every promise of overtaking her. The child was all long, awkward limbs, while Anne was small and glossy as a cat in a dairy.

“Will you? I pity the French,” said Anne, tweaking her sister’s nose.

Isabeau butted against Anne’s shoulder and smiled up at De Rieux, who was her guardian too. They were all crossing the drawbr…